Saturday 4 October 2014

which platform should you use?

There are lots of people who will tell you you should begin as you mean to go on. What they actually mean is if you intend to make money from blogging, go with self-hosted wordpress. But that isn't the only answer, these days there are lots and lots of platforms for blogs, especially if you just want to write.

The 3 most popular platforms are blogger.com, wordpress.com, and wordpress.org (which is the self-hosted program)

Blogger.com
Pros free, easy to use, can edit HTML code, can host advertising, WYSIWYG editor, linked to google
Cons I'm biased, because I use blogger and have always been able to find an answer to my problem. If you know of a problem, please leave a comment.

Wordpress.com
Pros free to use, limited HTML access, WYSIWYG editor
Cons can't host advertising, limited designs

Wordpress.org
Pros able to make changes to HTML, although some might require an experienced designer, content is yours to control
Cons costs money to host, sometimes experience is required

Squarespace is another system that has been around for a number of years. It costs money after an initial trial period, and is a closed-source code system, meaning you can't make changes to HTML code.

Typepad has also been around for a number of years, and similar to squarespace, costs after an initial free trial period.

Here is an interesting article from mashable with a list of 16 relatively new systems that are available if you just want to write.

Which platform do you use for your blog?


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2 comments

  1. I'm on the free Wordpress platform (used to use Blogger a very long time ago) and I really like it. I upgraded and can do basic coding to change the appearance, which has been pretty user friendly. I didn't know at the time that banner ads weren't supported, but to be honest that probably wouldn't have swayed my decision at the time. It was a bit of a bummer recently though, I was asked to add a sidebar widget to my blog - it was for people to donate to charity but it was sponsored by a major clothing label and looked like an advertisement, so I had to decline because I was worried that my blog might get suspended. Self-hosted sounds like a lot more work and I'm not very tech-savvy, so for now I'll stick the with the platform I have.

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  2. I have just switched to wordpress.org and after quite a bit of tweaking I think I am getting my site to where I would like it to be - for now. I have a little bit of experience so have been able to wrap my head around most things and if I have needed help I love all the forums available.

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